Seeds of Hope
by Cthuwho
Summary: Haruko Koizumi has been a Magical Girl for quite some time; so of course she is used to strange, and often times dangerous happenings. However, when she moves to Inazawa City and comes across a group of other Magical Girls who seem to have an unlimited supply of Grief Seeds, she begins to grow suspicious of their ways.


Chapter 1:

Haruko dived to her left, landing hard on her stomach but successfully avoiding the bubbling purple ooze. She turned, her orange hair flopping into her similarly shaded eyes, to see the Witch; a massive orb with a single eye that looked like a child's drawing. It was preparing to launch another attack. Gritting her teeth in frustration, she sprang up from the floor.

Well, she wasn't sure that 'floor' was really the proper word. This labyrinth was driving her crazy, for it looked as though she was floating in the sky and walking across some sort of invisible, hovering platform. The thundercloud familiars didn't help.

A second purple geyser erupted from the Witch's eye and flew straight towards Haruko. She rolled out of its path, and waved her hand. A dozen ornate silver daggers appeared before her, floating in mid air. Grabbing one, she spun around and threw it towards her opponent, taking another to launch after each rotation.

Suddenly, the Witch shot forwards, faster than Haruko would have thought possible. It was inches from her face in a fraction of a second.

Eyes widening, Haruko gasped and shut her eyes. Opening them a moment later, she found herself twenty feet away from where she was standing before. She smiled confidently. Her teleportation ability was incredibly handy.

"Okay," she said to herself. "Time to take you down." She lifted her hand into the air above her head, this time summoning hundreds of the daggers. Taking a second to do so, she straightened her collar and smoothed out the back of her grey costume. "Now be gone with you."

All at once, the daggers launched themselves at the Witch, each embedding themselves deep within the orb's surface. The Witch let out a noise like a scream, and Haruko felt a knot in her throat form when she thought about who this monster may have once been. For a moment, she felt a pang of guilt for killing the remnants of what was once another Magical Girl.

But that was the past. Now, regardless of what she may have once been, she was a dangerous force that needed to be taken out. Haruko narrowed her eyes, snapping her fingers. At once, every one of the orange gems embedded in the daggers' hilts burst in a small explosion. It was only seconds before the entire thing was engulfed in flames.

The world shimmered, and Haruko found herself on the side of the highway that she had discovered the Witch. Stepping forwards, she scooped up a round, black orb with a point on one side and a decorative shaft on the other; a Grief Seed. She sighed in relief.

"It's about time!" a high pitched voice said. Turning, Haruko saw a small, white, cat-like creature emerge from the shadows. "It seems like forever since you've done battle with a real Witch!"

Haruko frowned. "Well, I don't need your input on this, Kyubey. What matters is that I actually have a Grief Seed now."

She knew that, upon discovering the truth about the Soul Gems, most other Magical Girls turned away from and began to hate the creature. Nevertheless, she still thought of it as her friend, even though it could never return the feeling. She enjoyed its company, albeit that of an alien without any emotions.

Kyubey climbed up Haruko like a tree. "I suppose you'll be continuing towards Inazawa now?" It sighed, shaking its small furry head. "I'll never understand why you just gave up your territory to those new girls."

"I didn't want any trouble," Haruko replied. Her costume shimmered and exploded into glowing orange dust before disappearing, leaving her standing in pale blue pajamas with dog prints on them. "Besides, they seemed more than capable enough to protect Kiyosu, and I wanted to leave anyway."

Kyubey cocked its head at her. "You don't think they'll just be harvesting Grief Seeds? There aren't many Magical Girls like you, who kill familiars before they've grown enough to drop them. I know how much protecting the innocent means to you, but it may not mean much to them."

Haruko started walking along the side of the road, her hands crossed behind her back. "I'll admit I was taking a gamble, but Inazawa is a much larger area than Kiyosu. More territory means more Witches, and more people who need saving."

"But I've told you!" Kyubey interjected. "There are already Magical Girls in Inazawa! Are you going to risk picking a fight with them as well?"

Brushing Kyubey's head lightly, Haruko sighed. "And I've already told you. Since it's a larger city, they might want help keeping the Witch population down. If they don't want to team up, I'll be able to avoid them and hunt Witches in the places they aren't covering."

Haruko looked down at her new Grief Seed. The shaft had a little silver eye on it, and the round part was covered in swirling designs. The fact that they were all so unique had always unsettled her. It served as a constant reminder that Witches were once real people too. She held up her own Soul Gem and stared at the flame-like shape on the top of it. Would her Witch's Grief Seed have the same shape? She shook her head to dispel the thought.

She squinted at her orange Gem, inspecting the muddy black areas of it. Touching it lightly, Haruko watched as it transformed into a silver ring with runes on it. Her Soul Gem could hold on a little longer before she used her Grief Seed on it.

"Kyubey," she said, not bothering to turn her face towards it. "Would it make you happy if I turned into a Witch?"

"Well," the Incubator replied. "It certainly would help with with our goal of preventing the heat death of the universe, but you should know that I can't experience what you know as 'happiness'." It paused for a moment, before adding, "However, I can say that you do interest me, and it would be a shame to see your story end prematurely."

Haruko smiled. She supposed this was the closest Kyubey could come to friendship, but she appreciated it nonetheless. Sometimes the whole Magical Girl experience felt hopeless and bleak, and if Kyubey was just rooting for her to fall into despair, she didn't think she would be able to carry on for much longer.

This was the fate of a Magical Girl. Die fighting or become a Witch eventually. They gave up everything, their humanity, their salvation, just for one wish. Haruko couldn't say she regretted making a contract though, for she knew that no matter how dangerous her situation, she was better off now than she had been before.

For the ten years of her life before she met Kyubey, she had lived with her father. Her mother had died during childbirth, and perhaps it was this that had caused her dad to hate her so much.

"You're the reason she's dead," he would tell her whenever he was angry, which was most of the time. "You killed her. You expect me to love the murderer of my wife?"

Haruko knew his line of thinking made sense, which only made it all the more painful. He had never allowed her to go to school, and hardly even let her leave the house. She had no friends, and next to no one knew she existed.

It was because of this that he could get away with hurting her. He would take all sorts of household items, pots, brooms, even chairs, and throw them at her. When he was done with that, he dragged her to different rooms and beat her. Life was a living hell.

When Kyubey appeared before her with the option to make a wish, she thought she must have been dreaming. It was too good to be true. Unwittingly throwing her life and soul away, she begged to simply be taken somewhere her father would never find her again.

Haruko awoke the next morning in a brand new apartment being paid for by an inheritance that she had never heard of. Her Soul Gem in hand, she happily began work as a young Puella Magi, fighting Witches, free from her father's abusive hands. She could never regret such a change in fate, regardless of the consequences, regardless of how hopeless she felt at times.

Almost four years had passed since then, and Haruko had watched many lives end violently. She had seen other Magical Girls break down upon discovering the truth. She had seen Soul Gems flicker out and die, fading into Grief Seeds. Though she had had more than enough near death experiences for a lifetime, she got a sense that she would be having many, many more.

"We've almost made it to Inazawa," Kyubey said, snapping Haruko out of her thoughts. "I can't believe you decided to walk when you could have taken a bus."

"I was tracking a Witch," Haruko responded. "And it just so happened to be heading this way. I had a better chance of catching it on foot than on some sort of public transportation."

Looking up, Haruko saw the point of an incredibly tall building. She knew that it couldn't be anything other than Inazawa's famous elevator testing building, the largest in the world.

With her destination in sight, Haruko sighed. She hoped more than anything that the other girls who were already doing battle with Witches within the city would be willing to team up with her. She hoped they would be willing to be her friends even more.


End file.
